Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,
The Kennedy Center’s board told federal court that it will not try to put President Donald Trump’s name back on the building’s facade before at least Sept. 8, giving both sides time to discuss a new resolution opponents say flouts a prior court order.
In a joint status report filed late on Aug. 18, attorneys for the center and the U.S. Department of Justice said the board would delay enforcing the so-called recognition resolution the board approved on Aug. 13.
The measure stated that the board would add an inscription reading, “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump,” and rename the plaza in front of the building after the president.
Another resolution approved the same day provided that the center be closed for two years for renovations.
This means that some of the institution’s high-profile programming, such as the Kennedy Center Honors and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, would have to be presented off-site.
The National Symphony Orchestra said days ago that it would divide its upcoming season among six venues in and around the nation’s capital.
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex officio member of the center’s board of trustees, filed the lawsuit challenging the center’s first renaming—as “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts”—in December 2025.
Attorneys for Beatty said in the new filing that the latest name change resolution was a “breathtaking act of defiance.”
The statute that created the center “provides no lawful basis” to ignore the federal district court’s prior ruling and “impose Donald Trump’s name on a memorial dedicated by the Congress exclusively to a different President,” they said.
“Defendants are, once again, trying to memorialize Donald Trump—something the statute expressly prohibits,” her lawyers added.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered Trump’s name taken off the center’s marble facade on May 29, setting a removal deadline of June 12. Construction crews used scaffolding to begin physically prying the words “Donald Trump” off the facade in the early morning hours of June 13.
In the status report, the center said the scaffolding and a protective cover known as a tarp are needed for water testing and structural repairs to the roof overhang and its underside, and that the scaffolding was also used to remove the president’s name.
Beatty’s attorneys disputed that explanation, arguing the structure is in place to keep the Kennedy name obscured and prevent a return to the pre-litigation status quo.
They asked Cooper to rule before Sept. 8 on the lawfulness of the recognition resolution, arguing that the board seemed ready to act as soon as the center’s voluntary pause of free public tours ended.
The lawmaker’s attorneys also asked the court to direct the center to show cause why the covering should not be removed within 30 days, and to order the parties to begin discovery, an evidence-gathering process, into the shutdown decision.